Tipos de fuerzas aplicadas a los alambres

4.5.1 Subtheme 1: Importance of support

The participants noted that they received support from social systems such as families, community members as well as from social workers. A community is described as “any social, geographical or interest group in which the diversity of the members leads to the development of complex interaction, relationships and processes” (Van der Merwe and Krige, in Duncan, Bowman, Naidoo, Pillay and Ross, 2007 p.296). This definition captures all the communities that were mentioned in the study. Most of the foster parents received support and information from their communities. Some of them noted that they knew about foster care through friends and community members who encouraged them to then seek further support from social workers. Another foster parent reported the following:

“After the child’s mother passed on, the father also disappeared…I was struggling with the child, some of my neighbours informed me to go to the department of social development to apply for a foster care grant for the child so it would be easier to fulfil the child’s needs…so I went and the social workers assisted me…”.

Similar statements were made by the other foster parents. They noted that their communities were supportive in linking them to useful resources. Communities were also emphasised as important because some the decisions that were taken by the foster parents were influenced

by the community responses to their situation. Communities are there to monitors each other’s wellbeing and to be supporters in terms of need and to provide assistance in raising children. One of the participants in the study noted that she joined a group of mothers and grandmothers who are currently helping her to make the right choices in raising her foster child, whilst one participant had a negative experience in her community. According to the foster parent, her community did not play any role in supporting her or providing guidance to her with regards to how to go about with applying for a foster care. She noted that some of her community member advised her to give the foster child away to social workers as they felt that it would burden her to raise the child without the support of the father since the father was unknown. However, this participant felt strongly about keeping the child and making ends meet from what she had at her disposal. She noted that she was raised to believe that family is important and that families should support each other. She alluded to the possibility that her foster child may be a gift from God and that one never knows the plans that God has for her and her foster child.

Unlike the findings by Hipgrave (1982) which indicated the lack of support from communities in Briatin and America, community support plays an essential part in the confidence level of these foster parents when caring for their foster children in the South African context. As stated in social work in terms of the systems theory, it is noted that one system cannot function without the other, and the principle of interconnectedness is illustrated quite well in the study (Potgieter, 1998). Community serves as a place where foster parents receive approval, where they are guided and where decisions are made with the comfort of receiving advice and support.

One participant stated the following

“I also go for meetings in my community for women of all ages who raise orphaned children as well as abandoned children. it is good because they give me good advice”

4.5.2 Subtheme 2: Extended family members

Of the twenty participants, twelve participants noted that their foster care children were raised by their mothers before their passing on with some assistance and support from their maternal families. In contrast to nineteen participants who noted that they receive support from their

families only one of the twenty participants who was a male participant noted that he has also been raising his foster child under his care since the child was of a tender age. He noted that his relatives were all not available to help him raise the child after his mother passed on.

The findings are consistent with those of Silverstein and Auerbach (1999) that a father is not critical in the life of a child and that such a responsibility can be executed by a responsible adult who provides a stable environment for the child. This was the case in this inquiry, as nineteen participants reflected that their foster children had a father figure in their lives. Although participants maintain that do get support from families, it is difficult to measure and determine the extent and value of support that they in actual fact receive from their families (Maudeni, 2001). Such difficulty can be attributed to what Makomane ( 2012) refers to as economic and demographic changes which exhaust the traditional means of support that was offered by the extended family. Families also play an integral part in the lives of foster parents as well as their foster children. The families are there to assist foster parents with looking after the children when they are unable to do so or if they have other commitments. Families also look out for their foster children’s wellbeing and allow foster parents to take a break from the stresses of parenting now and again.

Reliance of foster mothers on their families for support in raising children is important and prevalent among Africans. The participants’ families played a role in assisting them with the upbringing of their foster children.

“… after my child passed on I continued raising my grandchild just as I had been raising her since her mother was alive, her uncles and aunts (maternal) would assist me in providing for the child’s needs such as school uniform, clothes as well as calculators and stuff.”

One participant noted that she single- handedly raises her grandchild without the support of relatives stating that

“I raise my own grandchild [meaning she raises her grandchild who was placed in foster care with her] and I fill both parts [referring to the role of mother and father].”

The maternal grandmothers and maternal aunts and uncles formed strong teams in raising and caring for their children. It appears that the participants raise their foster children in homes that are stable, nurturing and protective. The findings further confirm Louw’s (2013) assertion that, for a long time, child-rearing in South Africa has been characterised by multi- caregivers in the lives of children, such as grandparents and members of the extended family as they shared the same values as illustrated by the following storylines:

“Me and my other living children are responsible for my grandchildren’s upbringing. I [maternal grandmother] make sure that they go to school daily and always communicate with them about what they need at that time, I also ask for assistance from my own children who will then make sure that they provide for us where they can. When their mother was still alive, I was still active in my grandchildren’s lives and I [maternal grandmother] shared the same values with their mother and always agreed on a way of bringing them up although she would think that I spoil them sometimes (smiling…).”

“From birth till when she started going to grade 3, I was living with my grandchildren ... and their mother worked outside of town she [mother] would come around every fourth night to visit them . My grandchildren never liked going to the city to visit their mother so they spent most of their holidays with me.”

“Their mother used to live with me in the same house; she was never married when she gave birth to the child, so the child has always been in our house”.